1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of nutrition monitoring and more particularly to an electronic nutrition journal system.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is known in the art to monitor food intake. It is also known to create an electronic device that can scan barcodes on food packages and record or look up nutrition content. There are computer programs that track calorie intake as well as many other food parameters.
For example, Mansfield et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,819,735 teach a portable, autonomous electronic device with a barcode scanner and a database that allows a user to scan barcodes on food items consumed and keep a cumulative total of calories and other nutrients. They also teach that foods that are used in cooking may be referenced by scanning generic barcodes provided with the device. Mansfield et al. also teach a handheld device with a display screen that can display histograms of items like carbs, fats, sodium and other food ingredients.
Shepley in U.S. Pat. No. 5,478,989 teaches a device that compares nutritional information from a barcode scan of a food product with the personal health data of a user. Shepley primarily teaches a device that aids in selecting food items.
These prior art systems generally emphasize an autonomous device that tries to be self-contained with a microprocessor and onboard database. A particular problem with this is that it is very difficult to keep the database up to date with the variety of new food products entering the market. It is also difficult to make meaningful calculations or perform long term tracking of nutritional intake with small, totally handheld devices. Usually, the local database becomes quickly out of date, and because of limited memory capability, it is not possible to retain large amounts of data taken over periods of a year or years.
It would be advantageous to have a system that allowed a user to scan barcode information from food items, enter serving sizes, and enter data about food products like vegetables and fruit, and then upload this data into a personal computer or wirelessly over the internet to a more comprehensive program that has access to a large database of food items and ingredients. The larger database could maintain records of nutritional intake and track them for as long as the user desired. The larger, more comprehensive database could be kept up to date by either the user, interested parties or the food companies themselves, or could be managed by a nutritional journal provider.